Seamheads Ballparks Database adds 2014 season updates

Our friends at Seamheads.com are proud to announce another update of the Seamheads.com Ballparks Database, created by SABR members Kevin Johnson and Dan Hirsch.

The database includes the following updates through the 2014 season:

  • Descriptive data that includes location, date of first and last game (if applicable), number of seasons and games played, seating capacity, field dimensions, wall heights, playing surfaces, area of fair and foul ground, distance from the plate to the backstop, latitude, longitude, altitude, comments about structural or rules changes and current and historic aerial views.
  • Ballpark factors for Runs for every year since 1871.
  • Home run splits for every year since 1876.
  • Full ballpark factors and splits for home runs, hits, singles, doubles, triples, walks and strikeouts for every year since 1914.
  • Partial ballpark factors for years prior to 1914.
  • Park events for 45 defunct ballparks, including First and Last games, starting pitchers, batters and their results, hits, runs, RBIs, home runs, strikeouts, winning and losing pitchers, grand slams, inside-the-park home runs, no-hitters, and trivia.  (Note: Not all venues are 100% complete and some information is missing until further review and future updates).

Thanks to Dan, the database section of the site is very easy to use and includes the following:

  • Sort by Ballparks, Years, Teams or Cities.
  • Filter by Active, Inactive or Both.
  • Filter by Modern Era, 1800s or Both.
  • Filter by State.
  • Averages of seating capacity, field dimensions, wall heights, area of fair ground and backstop distances for each season dating back to 1871.
  • Number of teams and venues for each season dating back to 1871.
  • Percentages of grass vs. artificial turf and open air vs. domed vs. retractable roof for each season dating back to 1965 (all stadiums were open air with grass prior to 1965).
  • One-year and three-year park factors for each individual season and/or individual ballpark, filtered by league where applicable.
  • Sortable headers in ascending or descending order.

Thanks to an update at Retrosheet.org, data for our 1925 and 1936 seasons have been updated to reflect more accurate splits.  (Note: sometimes bat hand is unknown for switch-hitters and for some other batters).

Also, thanks to SABR member Ron Selter, numerous configuration data updates for 1890-1919 “Park Configurations” have been added.



Originally published: February 26, 2015. Last Updated: February 26, 2015.